ABSTRACT
Upon declaring independence from Britain on 4 July 1776, the United States Congress urgently needed to establish its credentials as a legitimate government which could credibly challenge the claims of the British Crown to political supremacy in North America. Americans adopted parliamentary procedures that, to any casual observer, seemed to borrow heavily from procedures evidenced by the practice of the House of Commons at Westminster. However, both nations built parliamentary procedures based on an idealised understanding of best practices. This approach enabled law-makers at Westminster to deal at arm’s length with its extensive and well-documented parliamentary history while American law-makers at Philadelphia were enabled to write mini-codes of procedures without explicit connection to British parliamentary experience.
